no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonored bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven.

In Chapter 8, Hester herself explains that Pearl is the scarlet letter only "capable of being loved and so endowed with the million-fold the power of retribution:  "She is my happiness!....She is my torture!"  In a criticism of the harsh punishment of the Puritans. also, Hawthorne writes that God has given Hester a lovely child to connect the isolated Hester with the human race and to provide her with the prospect of reparation through her caring love for her child.

Hester fears that there will be something amiss in Pearl's nature because she was the result of a sin, of Hester's own "evil" deed, and Hester watches the little girl constantly to see if some "dark and wild peculiarity" will emerge.

Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden; worthy to have been left there, to be the plaything of the angels . . .. The child had a native grace which does not invariably coexist with faultless beauty . . .

By this description, we are given to understand that Pearl is nearly physically perfect; she is even beautiful and seems to be worthy of Paradise or of keeping company with the angels. When one looks at Pearl, it is not clear that there is anything amiss in her character.

Further, Hester goes to great lengths to attire Pearl a particular way: always in red and in sumptuously rich fabrics and textures. Hester gives her imagination full sway when she creates Pearl's clothes; she may deny herself such beauties, but she does not deny her daughter.

So magnificent was the small figure, when thus arrayed, and such was the splendor of Pearl's own proper beauty, shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her, on the darksome cottage floor.

Thus, Pearl's own natural beauty is only enhanced by the gorgeous clothing her mother makes her. She wears her clothes, and they do not wear her; in other words, she becomes almost luminous when their beauty is added to her own, rather than becoming more pale-looking in comparison to them. Moreover,

Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but later in the day of earthly existence might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind.

In other words, Hester sees that her own self-conflict has been duplicated in Pearl's disposition. It's not that Pearl feels conflicted within herself, but rather that her moods can be totally contradictory; one moment she is calm and sunny, and the next moment she is tumultuous and volatile. Sometimes there even seems to be something otherworldly about the little girl.

She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility; it was as if she were hovering in the air and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither.

There is something incredibly different about Pearl's character. She is not like other children, or even other people. There seems to be something of Nature in her, as though she is part woodland spirit: something mischievous and unknowable and older than society.

The character of Pearle is a complex one though at first that may be hard to see through the turmoil and suffering Hawthorne surrounds her with. And, indeed, one of her main functions is to embody the turmoil and suffering that results from the twin evils of adultery and the extraordinary punishment incited by adultery. Pearle's function in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is to illuminate the psychological aspects of the novel and to underscore Hawthorne's thematic concerns.

First, Pearle illuminates psychological aspects by being a constant reminder of the act of adultery that led to Hester's suffering and public shaming. Pearle also is symbolic of the adulterous act itself in that she is both Hester's joy and prize, her "pearl of great price," and her torment, which is given because Hester is horrified by Pearl's early identification with the scarlet letter and by the imp that seems to posses Pearle. In correlation with this, Pearle is also the living embodiment of that scarlet letter and depicts the isolation resulting from the adultery: isolation for Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearle.

Further, Hester is unable to instruct Pearle in right behavior; she has tried but failed. In this Pearle functions to represent the painful consequences of unruly, wild, passionate, unnatural deportment by being the unnatural product of adultery. In addition, Pearle helps move the plot along by giving Hester added aggravation to her inner psychological deterioration.

Second, Pearle underscores Hawthorne's thematic concerns by making his points for him. Those points being that Puritan intolerance and extraordinary punishment destroy innocent children's minds as surely as adultery destroys their hope of a natural and happy life and that such intolerance and punishment subverts Christ's doctrine of love. While using Pearle to protest harsh and unloving punishment on one hand, Hawthorne paints with the other hand a representation of an allusion to the apostolic epistle, The First Letter of John, that enjoins us to sin not, but then explains what to do when we do sin, thereby sealing his protest against Puritanism's unloving, unforgiving punishments.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pearl is the daughter of Hester Prynne and a product of Hester's adulterous relationship with a minister, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester Prynne was married to Roger Chillingworth, and thought herself a widow at the time of the adulterous relationship. While Hester is jailed and pilloried for adultery, she is determined to keep Pearl and create a life with her. 

The name Pearl is derived from the Bible, specifically Matthew 13:45-46, which is a parable comparing the kingdom of Heaven to a merchant:

...  who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

This suggests that Hester will sacrifice everything for Pearl, who is the most important thing in her life. It implies that for Hester, Pearl is more important than worldly goods or reputation. In the comparison of Pearl to Heaven, it emphasizes a model of Christianity in which a mother's love for her child is a form of Christian piety, and that the sin of adultery counts for less in the eyes of God than Hester's devotion to Pearl. 

At the beginning of chapter five it states that she was named Pearl because she was "of great price-purchased with all she had,-her mother's only treasure!"  So, Pearl's name is symbolic of the price that Hester had to pay in order to bear her.  She sacrificed her reputation, her life, and any chance of a real happiness in that town.  She paid dearly for Pearl to enter into the world.

Also symbolic is the proess by which pearls are created.  They start as a grain of sand in an oyster, but through years of pressure and trying friction, eventually are transformed into pearls.  In the novel, Pearl was the result of great trial, great pressure, and great friction; her parents suffer greatly, and what they have to show for it is a beautiful child-Pearl.

I hope that helps a bit!

The scarlet letter is a public sign of humiliation for Hester, a sign that she's a "fallen woman," an adulteress, someone who doesn't really belong in this God-fearing Puritan community. At that time, the prevailing double standard held that women, not men, were responsible for adulterous liaisons. And so it's Hester who's subject to such degrading, unjust treatment for a moral transgression in which it takes two to tango.

Over time, however, Hester manages to forge a new identity for herself, and the scarlet letter plays an important part in this. The letter, though still a very potent symbol of sin and public humiliation, is also conversely, a sign of relative freedom. As she is now a social outcast, Hester is no longer subject to the stifling restrictions of Puritan life. This gives her the opportunity to think about a new life for herself and her daughter, something that would've been unthinkable without the scarlet letter.

Hester Prynne, the protagonist of the novel, is married to Roger Chillingworth. In his absence, she becomes pregnant and refuses to confess the name of the father to the townspeople. This was highly scandalous in her Puritan community, and as a means of punishment, she is forced to wear a giant scarlet A on her chest every day.

The letter A is meant to cause Hester shame and force her into repentance for her perceived sins. The A stands for adultery because she has conceived a child outside the boundaries of her marriage. Yet instead of representing shame, the letter comes to represent much more to Hester.

Hester finds a way to care for her child even though they both are ostracized by most of the townspeople. As it turns out, she is a skilled seamstress, and soon the entire town turns to her skills when they need garments with especially beautiful needlework. It is ironic that Hester's skills in creating beautiful clothes are so sought-after, considering that these same townspeople force her to wear a letter meant to shame her with its ugliness.

Thus, the meaning of the letter A arguably transforms and comes to represent Hester's resilience. Though she has been forced to live apart from her society, Hester refuses to allow the judgment of others to define her sense of self-worth.

The character of Pearl in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter conveys different emotions in various characters in the novel, all depending on who interacts with her, and what feelings emerge in Pearl about her immediate surroundings. 

Hester

When it comes to her mother, Hester, Pearl conveys the natural feelings of tenderness and love that any child conveys in a parent. However, she also conveys fear and doubt in Hester due to her obstinate, loud, and passive-aggressive behavior. Pearl is odd with her mother because she is meant to represent an extension of her mother's "sin". Pearl purposely reminds Hester of the scarlet letter by mentioning it, pointing at it, or mocking it. The resulting uneasiness that sparks in Hester seems to be pleasing to Pearl. So strange is she that Hester is even prompted to ask Pearl in chapter 6 "who sent her", in a way that places Pearl in the form of a supernatural being.

Dimmesdale

Dimmesdale, who confesses to be naturally dissonant with children, cannot come to terms with what Pearl is meant to represent in his life. As we know, Pearl and Dimmesdale fear each other in the forest, are weary of each other's presence, and do not feel comfortable up until the moment that Dimmesdale finally confesses at the scaffold that he is Pearl's father.

The village

Being that she is a child of infamy, Pearl gets the automatic ignonimity that sets her and her mother aside in the community. Naturally, this conveys upon the people who see her with Hester the sense of shame and sin of which Hester continuously suffers. However, Pearl defends herself as well as Hester from her tormentors quite aggressively, even making them take off in fear.

The eldermen (magistrates)

Yet, since Hester is a woman of strong character and of unique expression, she dresses Pearl up in a flamboyant way which attracts even more attention to the child. During the visit to the magistrates in Chapter 7, Pearl conveyed in the eldermen surprise, tenderness, and shock at seeing the way that this superbly dressed little girl acted so strangely when asked questions about her origin, about God, and about who she is. The shock that Pearl produces in the magistrates is only softened by Dimmesdale's intervention in defense of Hester's good skills as a mother and her right to raise Pearl, even if without a father.

The sailors

In chapter 22 of The Scarlet Letter, Hester had made plans to escape to Europe with Dimmesdale and Pearl. The sailors with whom she made the plans were rogue, wild men who seemed to be comfortable with Hester and were respectful enough. It is interesting to point that Pearl also conveyed in them a strange fascination which was also evident in the rest of the attending people in Election Day.

The Puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less inclined to pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty and eccentricity that shone through her little figure, and sparkled with its activity.

Her peculiar dress, her curious actions, and her whimsical and strange movements make Pearl look like a "rare bird" that one of the sailors even tried to catch to steal a kiss from her. So enthralling can Pearl be that she smittens the world around her when she wants, but is also able to make the world around her fear her with just as much strength. Like her name implies, Pearl is meant to represent a rare, unique being.

Up until the moment that Dimmesdale acknowledges Pearl and receives her kiss upon the scaffold, she has been a symbol. She's been the scarlet letter imbued with life, a wild symbol of her parents' sinful union, an elf-child, a symbol of nature like a bird or a flower: but she's never just been a little girl, an innocent child. In this moment, Pearl ceases to be a symbol. The narrator says that when Pearl kissed Dimmesdale's lips,

A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies, and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.

Thus, Pearl finally becomes a sort of normal human being after this: no longer a symbol of something beyond her but just her. She develops feelings that she's never had before, and no longer seems bound to torture her mother with erratic behavior or childlike obsessions with the scarlet letter. This kiss initiates Pearl into the world. Pearl and Hester return to England after this, and they remain there until Hester becomes an old woman, at which point she returns, alone, to Boston, to live out her remaining days. It was discovered by someone who investigated the lives of mother and daughter many years later that Pearl got married and was happy, "that she would have most joyfully have entertained [her] mother at her fireside."  =It seems, then, that Pearl becomes a pleasant and thoughtful young woman without any real trace, it seems, of the mischievousness and wildness associated with her symbolic childhood years.

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the scarlet letter that her mother is forced to wear on her dress is a source of fascination to Pearl. As a young infant, she touches the letter inquisitively and finds it amusing. However, it eventually comes to mean ostracism by the local townspeople to Pearl, while at the same time, it teaches her humility and gives her the strong desire to be happy despite the sorrow that exists in the world.

Hawthorne tells us that the scarlet letter was the first object that Pearl becomes aware of.

One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and, putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child.

However, because of what the letter represents, the Puritans in their small town believe that Pearl “was of demon origin.” They do not know who Pearl’s father is. They only know that she is an out-of-wedlock child, which, in those days, was the ultimate evidence of sin. In fact, at one point in the story, the Puritans attempt to remove Pearl from her mother’s home because they fear the influence that the “sinful” Hester might have on the innocent Pearl.

Yet, Pearl seems to be a happy child, the difficulties of her mother’s life notwithstanding. Her fascination with the scarlet letter continues as she becomes a young child. At one point during the novel, Pearl fashions herself a mermaid’s costume. Then,

“As the last touch to her mermaid's garb, Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. A letter,—the letter A,—but freshly green, instead of scarlet!”

Hester asks Pearl if she understands the significance of the scarlet letter that she is condemned to wear. The child responds and displays an intuitive understanding of the connection between the letter, her mother, and Reverend Dimmesdale:

“Yes, mother,” said the child. “It is the great letter A. Thou hast taught me in the horn-book.”

Hester looked steadily into her little face; but, though there was that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether Pearl really attached any meaning to the symbol. She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point.

“Dost thou know, child, wherefore thy mother wears this letter?”

“Truly do I!” answered Pearl, looking brightly into her mother's face. “It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!”

When Hester prods the child to say more, she answers that she does not know what “the letter [has] to do with any heart.” Nevertheless, she senses that there is something between her mother, Dimmesdale, and even Chillingworth.

However, over the course of the novel, although she might not fully understand what the letter represents to Hester, Pearl learns humility and empathy, in part because of the letter. She recognizes the heartbreak that the letter—or its origins—have caused her parents. When Reverend Dimmesdale is dying, Hawthorne writes:

The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.

Thus, to some degree, the letter also equates to her pledge to herself that she would grow up amid human joy and not only sorrow.

Since Pearl as at the very least a mischievous child, when her mother does not answer her in regards to its meaning, Pearl seems to enjoy making up meanings for it. Pearl also happens to be intelligent beyond her years, and so her guesses for what it could stand for are quite impressive.

For instance, one of Pearl's answers is that the letter means the same reason why the minister holds his hand over his heart. Since we know why Dimmesdale gets sicker and sicker, indeed, the letter means exactly what Pearl thought it did, though certainly in a figurative sense.

Dave Becker

Hester Prynne's child, Pearl, is her sin incarnate; yet, as her child she brings joy to her forlorn mother. In her interview with Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Wilson, who wish to take Pearl from Hester, Hester fiercely replies to them,

"God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave her, in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!--she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!"

As a constant reminder of her sin of passion, Pearl is the living scarlet letter that brings on the ridicule of the children and glances of the community.  She is the fruit of Hester's trangression that demands penitence, love, and patience.  For, Pearl laughs at the As exaggerated shape reflected in the governor's armor, she pelts her mother's mark of shame with burrs, she refuses to cross the brook until her mother replaces the cast off letter upon her bosom.  And, yet, she is a constant companion to the alienated woman bereft of all human companionship but hers. It is with Pearl, who holds her hand "in both her own" when they look up to the minister that Hester feels loved. It is with Pearl that Hester finally returns to the old country from which she has come; it is with Pearl that she has the joy of seeing her daughter married happily. It is with Pearl that Hester feels worthy, for her motherhood is fulfilled.

The scarlet letter "A" and her daughter Pearl testify to what Hester has done and are symbols of shame; but at the same time they both distinguish her as being apart from and even above the rest of the community. (Her position on the scaffold does the same thing.)

Hester bears the "A" on her bosom as an emblem of her identity (incidentally, much as the Jews would wear the star of David during the Nazi regime), and its presence somehow emboldens her to assume her life since she has nothing to hide. Unlike Dimmesdale, the father of the child, Hester does not cower in the shadows or pretend to be someone she is not; by wearing the "A" ("A"for Adultery) without flinching, Hester gains a certain dignity and self-respect by doing so.

Sprite-like Pearl, skipping among the light and shadow of the forest, is both Hester's burden and solace. Pearl cannot offer her mother the same kind of companionship as that of an adult, but her very presence breaks her solitude just the same. Her name is symbolic, too, in that the consequence of Hester's stigma for committing adultery is the gift of a beautiful child, untainted by the reproach which falls upon the mother. Pearl is indeed her pearl; and if before the eyes of the community the child is first considered a malediction, to Hester her daughter is a bittersweet consolation.

It is paradoxical that Hester Prynn devotes her life in service to a community which in essence has rejected her;although not a Christ figure per se, Hester nevertheless embodies the ideals of both sacrifice and atonement. Even the vividly red "A" she bears loses its original association; does it still mean 'adultery' as originally intended, or 'acquitted' or 'absolved,' or even 'angel?' (A far cry Hester is indeed from the personality of Dimmesdale, who succumbs under the weight of hypocrisy and pride. By such a flagrant contrast of characterization, Hawthorne deftly raises the important question of the real meaning of 'purity' within the New England 'Puritan' congregation and on a broader scope as well).

To sum up, the letter "A" and Pearl are alike in that they originally are negative in connotation by exposing Hester as an adulteress, but in the end they are emblems of her virtue instead.

Pearl and the scarlet letter are both instances of the open symbolism prevalent in Hawthorne’s romance, where a one-to-one correspondence between symbols and reality is not to be found. In fact, there is a sense of instability, an impossibility to find a standard meaning for symbolic elements, as it will be argued in what follows.

To begin with, it becomes easily apparent that Pearl, whose character is more open to interpretation than any other in the novel, functions primarily as a symbol.  On the one hand, she represents Nature itself. She embodies transcendental values –wilderness, intuition, beauty, love, passion– and, from a Puritan perspective, she is also a symbol of sin, in as much as she is the outcome of a guilty passion, and, besides, has a passionate nature, which is potentially dangerous. On the other hand, Pearl also represents truth. Her real function is to provoke the adult characters in the book.

As far as the scarlet letter is concerned, the letter is not only a symbol for Hester’s sin, but also a symbol for Hester herself. As it can be remarked, the letter’s significance shifts as time passes. Although originally intended to mark Hester as an adulterer, the “A” eventually becomes indeterminate, to the point that, according to the Native Americans who come to watch the Election Day pageant, it marks Hester as a person of status.

In any case, the confronting versions or interpretations for the symbols provoke in Hawthorne’s novel a collapse of hermeneutic frame. This is a response both to Puritanism -according to which everything could be interpreted with the help of the Bible-, and Transcendentalism, according to which everything could be interpreted in connection with Nature. The instability of both Pearl and the scarlet letter as symbols calls into question people’s inability to use symbols for ideological support.

Pearl undergoes a change when she perceives the difference wrought in her mother after Hester has taken down her hair and removed the scarlet "A." Hester has been speaking with the Reverend Dimmesdale in the forest, and when Pearl returns, Pearl's demeanor changes because "since [she had] rambled from her [mother's] side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother's feelings, and so modified the aspect of them all" and "Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was." Seeing her mother so close to another person—when it has always been only Pearl and Hester against the world—shook Pearl to her core. On top of this, she's only ever known her mother to wear her hair hidden under the cap and to wear the scarlet letter; now, with her hair down and the letter gone, Pearl finds her mother to be frightening and foreign.  

As a result, Pearl will not approach her mother and remains on the other side of the brook. She will not speak but only points at "her mother's breast," frowning and "stamp[ing] her foot with a yet more imperious look and gesture." Despite her mother's entreaties that she come and speak to the minister, despite even her threats of anger, Pearl

burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak with piercing shrieks . . .

This is a huge departure from Pearl's typical behavior. She always tends to stick with her mother no matter what else is going on, even defending her against the children in the town. Once Hester puts her hair back up and repins the letter to her breast, Pearl accepts her and returns to her old self once again.

The exact moment of Pearl's transformation in Nathaniel Hawthorne'sThe Scarlet Letteroccurs in chapter XXIII, after Arthur Dimmesdale gives his final election day speech addressed to the "people of New England", and where he confesses to be the sinner upon which the scarlet letter should have been bestowed.

It all begins when, after the final disclosure of his sin, Arthur Dimmesdale asks Pearl for a kiss. The first time Dimmesdale had kissed Pearl, it was when he met Hester in the forest; a forest whose darkness was symbolic of the secrecy and sin that still permeated the relationship between he and Hester. For this reason, Pearl rejected him then, and washed his kiss off her cheek.

This time, as the narrator explains, was different. Something supernatural seems to have taken place:

Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies ... Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.

We know that shortly after Dimmesdale's death, comes Chillingworth's own death. As an act of perhaps guilt, or redemption, Chillingworth leaves his possessions to Pearl, of all people. As a result of that, Pearl is able to take care of her mother and the full circle of Pearl's life is complete.

The scarlet letter “A” which Hester is forced to wear upon her breast is only a sign or accusation that she committed adultery, but the little girl is undeniable circumstantial evidence, living proof, that Hester committed adultery.

The main theme of the novel is based on a famous incident recorded in  John, Chapter 8, of the New Testament.

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him…. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her....And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Pearl not only represents the sin of adultery, but Hawthorne calls her “a living hieroglyphic.” She is not only proof of the sin, but as she grows older the features of her father will become more and more apparent in her own face. In other words, Dimmesdale’s guilt will become obvious to everyone sooner or later, because Pearl will look more and more like her father. So Pearl is a living accusation of his guilt and a living portent of his ultimate exposure. She torments his conscience every time he sees her. She also binds him inextricably to Hester.

Hester names her child Pearl because she is a treasure for which she has had to pay a great price. Here again, there is a direct allusion to the New Testament. In this case it is to Matthew 13:45-6.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man….Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

Pearl is already a complex character while still very young. She is exceptionally beautiful, but at the same time she is described as having a mischievous and impish nature. Her mother loves her and refuses to part with her, but she is also a little bit afraid of her--as are all the other children in the neighborhood, for that matter. Pearl is a continual source of worry for both her parents. Hawthorne apparently intended to convey that idea that this little girl has a demonic nature because she was born out of a sinful liaison and is growing up without a father. In his novel The House of the SevenGables, Hawthorne’s theme was based on Exodus 34:6-7 in the Old Testament:

...The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

I'm not sure that you want to say Pearl is symbolic of nature - but perhaps you could tweak this thesis to say that her symbolism is often represented by nature.  If you wish to stray from the idea that she is symbolic of sin - you could take the otherside and say she is actually symbolic of truth and purity.

I would start with the description of the rosebush in chapter 1.  This rosebush is certainly meant to be symbolic - different ideas include that it is the last beautiful thing that the prisoners see before being punished and that it is symbolic of life and hope.  Consider that in chapter 8, when Rev. Wilson asks her "Who made you," Pearl answers, "I was not made at all.  I was plucked from the rosebush that grows beside the prison door."  This could be your key line and the foundation for your argument.

Another example of nature representing Pearl's symbolic meaning is the scene in chapter 6 (well, there's probably a lot you could find in chapter 6) where Pearl playfully covers the scarlet letter on her mother's bosom with wildflowers.  Pearl herself, grows and acts much like a wildflower.  Later - in chapter 16 there is evidence of the sunshine following her.

So, again, I don't know that you can make a compelling argument that Pearl is symbolic of nature - but certainly nature plays a role in revealing that she is symbolic of purity and truth.

Of course, it is highly significant that not only does Hester choose to embroider the "A" on her breast with such beauty, but also that she calls the fruit of her "sin" Pearl - gained at great price. Pearl in the novel is seen as an "elf-child", a denizen of the world of romance, rather than a socially oriented individual of the kind encountered in realist novels. The child's laughter and tears are extreme responses to situations, signalling a lack of proportion that makes social intercourse and reciprocity difficult. Of course, the fact that Pearl lives in isolation does not help her social interaction.

In the novel, Pearl seems to act as an incarnation of physical pleasure and imaginative freedom, standing in direct opposition to the Puritan way of life. Her vitality and attractiveness serve to highlight the limitations of the Puritan lifestyle, though her unruliness also indicates the dangers of uncontrolled indulgence. She is, after all, the living embodiment of the same illicit passion that led to the imposition of the scarlet "A." Significantly, her mother sustains her love for Pearl, the symbol of illicit passion, and that indicates Hester's staunch refusal to acknowledge her own act of sin in begetting Pearl, thus giving another sign that Hester refuses to be categorised and labelled as a sinner under the Puritan rules of conduct.

Pearl then arguably acts as a symbol of the forces of celebratory life-giving that oppose the bleak life-denying aspects of Puritanism which have caused both Pearl and her mother such grief.

Pearl is contrasted with Hester, who is essentially rule-abiding and law-following—her one indiscretion notwithstanding—because Pearl cannot be “made amenable to rules.” Pearl is often compared to things in nature. She is said to possess a “wildflower prettiness,” and the narrator often compares her to birds and flowers, even calling her an “infant pestilence” at one point.

It is as though Pearl is ruled by her nature rather than the rules of society—and the Puritans were awfully good at making rules, as Hester well knows. Pearl is the product of two people who were breaking those rules when they conceived her, and her nature seems to embody that lawlessness. Hester is still married when she has the affair that results in Pearl’s birth, and Pearl's father, Reverend Dimmesdale, is a minister in the town. Dimmesdale has an upstanding reputation and is supposed to be a model of morality.

Hester wears her scarlet letter, and Pearl designs a green one of her own out of eel grass. She also flings flowers at her mother’s scarlet letter and dances with glee each time she strikes it. Additionally, Pearl decorates it with green burrs that stick to the fabric. Even the sunlight does not seem to shine on Hester as it does on Pearl—at least not until Hester removes the badge of her sin and her cap while in the woods with Dimmesdale.

Pearl starts life as the product of adultery, for which her mother is forced to stand on a scaffold for several hours and wear a scarlet "A" on her clothes forever to brand her as an adulteress.

From infancy, Pearl proves to be a delightful—if somewhat peculiar—child, and she grows up to be a vivacious young girl. She does, however, display some strange mannerisms which lead her mother to wonder if she is some sort of elf child.

Through all the turmoil of her life, Hester has someone to love and care for in Pearl. While Pearl's nature is often rebellious and her interest in the occult could easily have led to her being branded as sinful as her mother, she is seen as a positive force in her mother's life.

She inherit's Chillingworth's wealth after his death, and she leaves Boston, never to return. Over and above this wealth from her adulterous mother's husband, she receives validation and proof of her identity by Dimmesdale acknowledging, albeit on his death bed, that he was her father.

It is insinuated that she later got married and remained a good daughter to Hester throughout her life. According to rumors, Pearl's husband was a member of a European royal family.

Ever since the establishment of the first colonies in America, the Puritans continued to enforce the same Bastardy Laws as they existed in England as of the 1660's. Hawthorne was spot on in describing the manner in which aldermen expected women who became pregnant out of wedlock to openly declare the father of the child, since the pain that comes out of childbirth should not be bare alone. 

According to Puritan law, a child who is born out of wedlock is considered, like with Pearl, an "elfin" or something supernatural that will never make it to heaven due to the sins of the mother.

A strange child!” remarked old Roger Chillingworth. “It is easy to see the mother's part in her. Would it be beyond a philosopher's research, think ye, gentlemen, to analyse that child's nature, and, from it make and mould, to give a shrewd guess at the father?As a result, some women would rather confess to fornication than follow the humiliating consequences of bastardy laws.

Hence, since the children were not recognized by a specific family, the most likely answer is that Pearl carried Hester's last name of "Prynne". This is ironic considering that Hester's last name is that of her husband, Roger.

However, last names for the likes of Pearl were really not necessary. The girl was not to be baptized, presented, nor allowed in church-related activities. She was to suffer the same isolation as her mother. More than likely, Pearl was not even accounted for in the population because, as a result of her mother, she would not be considered as a worthy community member. Therefore, although her last name does not really matter (nor does it come up in the novel), the likelihood of it being her mother's own last name is quite high.  

Hawthorne is also using this epithet to connect readers back to the first chapter, The Prison Door. Pearl is like the red rose bush that grows next to the prison. The prison represents the sin of society, and it represents failure. It is weathered and clearly aged. It is like the adults in the Puritan community, set in their ways, their prejudices, and their sins. Pearl, however, is an innocent, and in the end breaks free of her community, thrives, leads a happy and successful life. She is the rose that brings hope to the prisoners of the past. Hawthorne chose very carefully to write of an earlier time, to comment on his own ancestors and the sins that they committed, but uses Pearl to demonstrate that those sins have, or can be, overcome.

Because roses are beautiful but have thorns. So too does Pearl. She is physically beautiful but has a mean streak in her. She is called a "red rose" by Dimmesdale, who thinks it complimentary, for the child is so beautiful. But Dimmesdale soon discovers the thorns: Pearl “threw one of the prickly burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light missile”

Pearl is often cruel to her mother as well. She enjoys edging the scarlet "A" with the irksome burrs: "arrange[ing] them [prickly burrs] along the lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal bosom."

She is a "red" rose in particular because she is tainted by proxy through her mother's "sin" and also probably red because she is a flesh and blood human being who does not hesitate to show her anger.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel is less about characterization than symbolic meaning, and for this reason, it often presents problems for readers. In fact, Hawthorne as narrator terms Pearl as "the scarlet letter endowed with life." Ironically, her physical appearance is much like the pre-scaffold Hester: 

a rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown....,

yet she is the scarlet letter made incarnate. This incongruity suggests, then, that although one commits sin, there is still beauty and goodness in the person. This concept, of course, contradicts the Calvinist anathema for sin. 

As a symbol, Pearl often reflects the conflicts of her mother. In Chapter IV, for instance Hawthorne writes that Pearl "writhed in convulsion of pain, and was a forcible type in its little frame," and focuses upon the misery of Hester who is isolated and experiences much rejection. Certainly, too, Pearl represents the passion of Hester as in Chapter VI, Hester recalls what she herself has been, "Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl."

Not a passive reminder of her mother's sin, Pearl plays an active role in connecting Hester and Dimmesdale. In the second scaffold scene, Pearl asks Dimmesdale if he will stand in the daylight and hold her hand as he has done this night. When, Dimmesdale does not have the courage to do this, Pearl chastises him, "Not wast not true!" These words clearly presage Hawthorne's own statement of theme at the end of the novel: "Be true! Be true! Be true!" It is Pearl who forces her mother in the forest to replace the scarlet letter and still acknowledge her sin; it is Pearl who, thus, effects Hester's salvation just as she does Dimmesdale's when he invites Hester and Pearl onto the scaffold after considering her chastisement of him earlier. Indeed, Pearl is the living conscience of her parents; as such she effects their spiritual salvation.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the character of Pearl has different roles in the lives of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Far from being a sinner herself, Pearl is the extension of Hester Prynne's sin and the agent of change in the lives of Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Her entrance into this world prompted Hester's punishment, exile, and humiliation. Her existence is Dimmesdale's constant reminder of his own sin and weakness; a clear proof of the flawed notion that he is a man above reproach. Ultimately, Pearl is also the only reason why Chillingworth seeks revenge. She is the product of adultery, lies, and indiscretion.

Pearl is the character that moves the plot forward. If it had not been for Pearl being conceived, the actual scarlet letterwould have never been placed on Hester's bosom. However, far from being just "Hester's accident", Pearl defined Hester as an independent woman, and as a fighter. She also brings out the human side of Dimmesdale which everybody in the settlement aimed to push down in order to create a clay saint out of him. Ultimately, Pearl is the redeemer of Chillingworth; when the latter leaves her his earthly possessions he reforms himself and, perhaps, even finds his salvation.

Hence, Pearl is not a sinner. She is the product of sin. For this reason, she serves as the symbol of weakness, and indiscretion that causes change in the lives of Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. That is what, ultimately, could be her salvation from the sin that brought her to this world: that she had the capability of changing them and making them repent from their past actions.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne takes great care in describing Pearl’s appearance. In most cases, it is with an eye toward her striking natural beauty. There is an important irony here—Pearl, conceived in a sin that altered the lives of her mother and the Reverend Dimmesdale while destroying the obsessed Roger Chillingworth, is something extraordinary to look at—a true physical marvel.

Hawthorne devotes chapter six to Pearl, and expresses the ideas above in metaphorical terms in the chapter’s first sentence:

. . .  that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immoral flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion.

Hawthorne loves the ambiguity he has created with the beautiful child that came from sin, and in the next quotation he goes so far as to compare her to something that belongs, ironically, to mankind’s home when mankind was still innocent and sinless:

Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden.

Hester plays her part with a willful purpose. Just as she decorates her letter “A” to make it a thing of beauty, much to the disapproval of the townsfolk, she also makes a display of Pearl. Pearl does not slouch about town in shame. Instead, Hester sees to it that she is radiant, a living scarlet letter that will make itself seen and known:

Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the public eye.

Hawthorne uses both the scarlet letter and Pearl as a way to show Hester’s defiance. She has been cast out and marked, and for the most part she bears her punishment dutifully, but the embroidering of the letter and the dressing up of Pearl allow her to make a silent protest, and it is one that her neighbors tolerate. Perhaps this is Hawthorne’s way of demonstrating that the American Puritans might not have been as narrow minded and self-assured as we see them in hindsight.

This occurs in chapter 19. Literally, Pearl requests that the letter be returned to Hester's chest because it is a familiar piece of her mother that makes her mother identifiable to Pearl. It is a part of Hester's identity.

This incident is so strange because Pearl gives Hester great affection when the letter is replaced and she even kisses the letter on Hester's chest.

Figuratively, Pearl is representative of evil. She has been referred to as a devil-child throughout the text. The evil in her does not want the shame and guilt of what occurred to Hester to be removed. She wants Hester to be forced to keep living with it. This greatly pains Hester.

I'm not sure that Dimmesdale does not remain true to himself ... it's just that it was very destructive.  This somewhat lengthy quote highlights that point:  " Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework."

Dimmesdale's self was intimately tied up with his sense of religion, supporting him in its unbinding "iron framework."  Just as Hester remained true to her freedom from the censure of the Puritan community, so Dimmesdale remained true to the framework that supported him. 

Many people find Hester a much more sympathetic, true-to-hserself character; I find Dimmesdale to be as true to his values as Hester, although the consequences of this loyalty are not at all admirable in many people's eyes.

Pearl is Hester's torture because she is a constant reminder of the sin she committed with Dimmesdale and she is also an unusual "elf-child". Pearl often reacts in strange ways to others and to her mother. For instance, when trying to determine custody of Pearl, Governor Bellingham asks Pearl where she came from. He obviously expects her to answer that she came from God. Instead, she answers that she was plucked from the rosebush outside the prison door. This shocking answer almost makes Bellingham take Pearl from Hester. It is onlythrough the pleading of Dimmesdale that she is allowed to keep Pearl. Pearl also has a fit when Hester tries to remove the Scarlet Letter. However, as any mother knows, Hester loves Pearl. She learns from Pearl about the consequences of her actions and she remains strong for her daughter. during the course of the novel, only Hester and Pearl really stay true to themselves. Hester never tries to hide her sin, and Pearl really has nothing to hide. Both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth have hidden sins that eventually destroy them.

Pearl is the result of Hester and Dimmesdale's sin and a symbol of their love. Though Pearl is a result of and a reminder of sin, she brings great joy to Hester's life.

Pearl is an active, joyful, unrestrained young girl. Pearl also has an intimate connection with nature. She is not afraid to run, get dirty or speak her mind, and is, at times, uncannily astute (making the connection between Hester and Dimmesdale.) The Puritans associated evil, wrong-doing and witches with the woods (on the edge of which Hester and Pearl live), so Pearl was often seen as a mischievous and ill-behaved child that wasn't being taught or living by Puritan doctrine.

"The child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning." ~ Chapter 4

"Her Pearl!—For so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great price,—purchased with all she had,—her mother's only treasure! " ~ Chapter 6 (This entire chapter is about Pearl as is most of Chapter 15.)

"Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs." ~ Chapter 15

Pearl's role in the novel is subject to much interpretation. Most obviously, to the Puritans she represented sin, the physical proof of human sinfulness and moral frailty. Her presence branded Hester as much as the scarlet letter she wore. However, Pearl (as well as her mother) were not considered to be beyond spiritual redemption. Pearl's remaining with her mother was contingent upon Hester's instilling in her the tenets of the church.

Hester's view of Pearl was complex. Pearl was a reminder of Hester's spiritual downfall, but she was also a reminder of Hester's love and passion for Dimmesdale. Hester takes a secret pride in Pearl, defiantly dressing her in bright colors. When alone in the forest with Dimmesdale, Hester expresses her love and joy in their child. 

On another level, Pearl represents salvation for Hester, both physically and spiritually. It is Pearl who keeps Hester "in life," and it is she who keeps Hester from further moral downfall. This idea is expressed when Hester explains why she should be allowed to keep her daughter.

Finally, Pearl represents the triumph of love and goodness over hatred and evil. Through her mother's love and devotion, Pearl grows into a strong young woman who moves on to live a good life in England. She inherits all of Chillingworth's estate, his acknowledgment that she had suffered as the result of his obsessive pursuit of revenge against Pearl's father. Of the novel's four major characters, only Pearl was innocent, and innocence is rewarded in the novel's conclusion.

Pearl’s name, ironically, comes from the bible:  “a pearl of great price.”  Hester names her this because her birth came at great price to her mother.  Hester says she was “purchased with all she [Hester] had.”  Pearl is “the living Scarlet Letter;” the representation, in the flesh, of Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin.  Hester does her no favors by dressing her in beautiful clothing, mostly red and very noticeable.  When Pearl runs through the town, everyone notices her, some people point at her, and she knows, even at a young age, that she is somehow different.  Not even the children will play with her, as they have been warned that she is “unbaptized” and therefore somehow evil. 

Pearl’s temperament drives the novel’s action.  In fact, it is usually Pearl who acts as a catalyst for the action.  One example is in the “Elf-Child and the Minister” chapter when Pearl is being quizzed to find out if she should be taken from Hester.  When asked who made her, at first she refuses to answer, then “the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses, that grew by the prison-door.”  This causes the gentlemen to judge Hester very harshly, and it also causes Dimmesdale to defend Hester.  Later in the novel, every time she sees Dimmesdale, Pearl asks why he has his hand over his heart.  The reader, too, would like to know the answer to this question.  In a way, the reader and Pearl are in the same situation.  There are things going on and we need answers.  Pearl finds these answers out for us.  It is Pearl who asks if the minister will stand with them in daylight.  The reader also wants to know if Dimmesdale will ever acknowledge his child in public. 

In The Scarlet Letter Pearl is, indeed, made to represent several things for Hester and Dimmesdale.

The first thing that she represents is their nature. Dimmesdale and Hester engaged in their love affair because they both obviously share an impulsive and passionate nature. It is highly possible that, had Pearl never been born, they would have continued their affair in uttermost secret. This is the reason why Dimmesdale cannot connect with Pearl prior to his admission of guilt; because Pearl reminds Dimmesdale over and over that he is not the saintly man that the rest of the congregation takes him for. Similarly, Pearl consistently reminds Hester that her nature as a woman ahead of her time is what has rendered her so feeble and succeptible to the unfair treatment of the people.

Pearl is represented as a symbol in the manner in which her demeanor changes in the presence of Hester and Dimmesdale. Had Pearl bore no significance as is, she could have just acted obliviously when close to any of her parents. However, this is not the case. In the forest, she is weary, despondent and uneasy in the presence of Dimmesdale as if he were a bad omen for her, and vice versa. With Hester, she is cruel and manipulative, prompting her mother to wonder whether she had really been sent from God, or from some other supernatural force. In all, Pearl is reflective of her parents' guilt, of their fears and of their never-ending feeling of punishment.

Keep in mind, however, that one cannot just write Pearl off the narrative because it is precisely the fact that she IS a REAL human character that has caused the misery in the lives of Dimmesdale and Hester. Again, had Pearl never been born, neither Hester nor Dimmesdale would have had to bother learning any new life lessons, nor paying for any mistakes.

Pearl is a deeply symbolic character. As her name suggests, she is a pearl of great price, echoing the biblical parable of spiritual wealth beyond compare. Like Adam's fall, which led to the possibility of salvation through Christ, Pearl was conceived in sin, but her being leads to redemption. Some of this possibility can be seen in how she changes, from an almost feral/wild child to the entity who suggests that Hester take up the scarlet letter again. She moves from rebellion to a kind of innate authority.

Pearl is a necessary symbol because, by being unique and mysterious, she gives some essence of female sophistication, and even a supernatural purpose, to Hester's affair. This means that Hester did not just have an affair because she is a lose woman, or a wayward. There might be more than just carnal motivation behind the union of two souls such as Hester's and Dimmesdale's. She also gives purpose life; to existing, even if it is in the form of an outcast.

Pearl is given unique and beautiful traits that far outweigh the ugly environment that forces her odd behavior. We know that she is beautiful, that the colors in her clothing seem more brilliant and shiny, that her behavior is primal, and instinctive. All of these things build up an image of Pearl that detours completely from the horrid image of the demon-child that the villagers aimed to create.

Therefore, the use of Pearl as a supernatural symbol colors the actions of Hester and provides a much needed relief from the ugly and gritty image of Hester that the villagers built. Moreover, the fact that Pearl is an innocent soul born out of what is perceived to be a sinful act gives Pearl's life dyadic meaning; life is not as matter-of-fact as the villagers thing; there is a complexity in existing and it is our actions, and not our circumstances, what make us "good", or "evil". Hence, Hawthorne uses both the physical and the intangible to add dimension to the life of Pearl, and a significance of purpose to the sad life of Hester Prynne.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is held by her mother, Hester.

We are first introduced to Pearl and Hester in the second chapter. Hester is forced to stand in front of the villagers with the letter A stitched onto the front of her dress and her infant daughter in her arms.

Both the scarlet letter and Pearl are viewed by the Puritans as symbols of Hester’s adultery. Pearl’s illegitimacy makes her just as much of a social outcast as her mother.

As Hester is holding Pearl, she finds herself subconsciously squeezing her daughter too tightly, which makes Pearl cry. The reason Hester squeezes Pearl is left for readers to determine. It is unclear whether Hester is trying to hurt or protect Pearl. She loves her baby, though she is reminder of her shame and adulterous behavior. Pearl’s primary function in the novel is a living symbol of Hester’s sin: a human scarlet letter, so to speak.

Pearl in The Scarlet Letter is not so much the embodiment of sin as she is the product of sin.  Through the Reverend's and Hester's digression, something beautiful is born.  It is like a pearl that is formed in a clam from a single grain of dirt or sand.  The character, Pearl, is something wondrous that is made from something "ugly" like sin.  Pearl represents an innocence not tainted by sin, and she is a redeeming character for Hester. 

Many times historical people or literary characters become symbols of a trait or value of society.  For example, Abraham Lincoln represents honesty; Huck Finn represents individuality.  You can probably name a quality many people in your own life represent--a mother symbolizes love, a friend symbolizes acceptance, or a teacher symbolizes wisdom.  By making a character or person a symbol of an abstract quality we value in society, an author establishes a relationship between the reader and character so we can better empathize with and understand the character.